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old methods will be used and they have a place, perhaps, bul the new method of 
Lhe laboratory may be regarded as the methods of the future. This requires trained 
: pecialists. It will call for more concentration of effort in experiment-station work. 
It Is to be most sincerely hoped that the time IS QOl far distant when men engaged 
in investigations at our stations will not be expected to constantly publish bulletins 
of progress and give to the press the various occurrences of their laboratories, unless 
the time is propitious for doing so. There should be no haste to place such infor- 
mation as this before the public until the tacts are all in, the conclusions drawn, and 
the records in due form. 
In his presidential address on "The progress of science," before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, at Denver, on August 27, 1901, Prof. 0. 
B. Davenport said, among other things: "Prominent among the advances of the 
century will be the ability to control biological processes. We shall know the factors 
that determine the rate of growth and the size of an animal, the direction and 
sequence of cell divisions, the color, sex, and details of form of a species. The study 
of animals in relation to their environment, long the pastime of country gentlemen 
of leisure, will become a science. Some day we shall be able to say just what con- 
ditions determine an animal's presence at any place, and more than that we shall be 
able to account for the fauna — the sum total of animal life of any locality — and to 
trace the history of that fauna." 
One can not peer into the future, excepting darkly, but it does not require a very 
profound foresight to see new and far better methods in use in studying problems 
in animal breeding. The instructor in mathematics will no doubt join hands with 
the one in thermatology, and thus the w T ise application of statistical methods will 
take a place in the work such as the nineteenth century has hardly seen. Crude 
opinions and desultory observation will certainly not meet with favor, but scientific 
accuracy in all its details will be the requirement of the future. With the advent of 
such methods, one may look for a profound addition to our knowledge of the princi- 
ples of breeding. 
The section then adjourned sine die. 
SECTION ON HORTICULTURE AND BOTANY. 
Meetings of the section were held on the afternoons of November 17, IS, and 19, 
1903, at 4 p. m. 
It was decided to take up the papers in two groups: First, those relating to experi- 
ment-station work; second, those relating to college or teaching work. 
F. V. Coville, of the Bureau of Plant Industry of the U. S. Department of Agri- 
culture, gave a brief outline of the work at the Carnegie Arid Region Laboratory and 
briefly discussed the results thus far obtained. A number of photographs were 
exhibited illustrating the vegetation of the region. 
The following paper was presented by W. A. Orton, of the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture: 
Crop Rotation ix the Southern States as Influenced by Plant Diseases. 
The several reasons for the rotation of crops may be classed under three general 
heads: 
I. To increase and maintain the productive capacity of the land — 
(a) By the addition and conservation of nitrogen and other available plant 
foods through the agency of leguminous and other crops. 
(b) P>y alternating crops of different food requirements. 
(c) By improving the physical and biological condition of the soil, through 
the addition of humus, the alternation of cultivated with covercrops, etc. 
(d) By growing deep-rooted crops to bring up plant food for shallow-rooted 
crops and to establish deeper aeration. 
(e) By the conservation of soil moisture. 
II. To make farm operations economical — 
(a) By having the income derived from several crops instead of from one. 
(b) By securing continuity and regularity in the employment of labor. 
